A man has been tasered by police inside the Palace of Westminster .
Journalists tweeting from the scene described a heavy police presence and a man being “pinned to the ground” inside Carriage Gates, where an attacker in 2017 broke into Parliament before killing P Keith Palmer.
Reuters pictures showed armed police using a stun gun on the man on the cobbled forecourt inside the British parliament’s main Carriage Gates.
The man was later handcuffed as police pointed a gun at the man’s head and could later be seen being held against a fence inside the entrance to the Houses of Parliament.
In a statement, the Met Police said a man had been arrested on “suspicion of trespassing at a protected site”.
It is not thought to be terror related and he is to undergo a mental health assessment.
Police were deployed to St Stephen’s courtyard to secure the area and redirect staff elsewhere on the estate.
The Commons Press Office later tweeted saying the situation was now over.
Last March Khalid Masood drove a 4x4 down Westminster Bridge, hitting pedestrians before crashing outside the Houses of Parliament and stabbing two police officers around the same area as today’s incident.
In August, a man was arrested after driving a car into pedestrians and cyclists before ramming into barriers outside the parliament building in what police said appeared to be a terrorism attack.
Since the attacks, security at the site has been beefed up, with a permanent armed presence at the entrance.
Tory MP Penny Mordaunt tweeted in praise of the police, saying she was “always in awe at [their] professionalism, courage and dedication”.